Luke's Lollive Poker Blog

Got back from a Sunday afternoon session and am seriously considering never playing Sunday afternoon's again.  My god what a dead/small buy-in, nitty game.  Blech.  Anyway, this hand happened.  Preflop is bad - I called out of boredom tilt.

1/3 NL 10 handed

UTG+1 - $150, UTG+2 - $175, HJ - $300

UTG folds, UTG+1 limps, UTG +2 limps, fold fold, HJ limps, CO folds, BTN folds, I raise to $15 with 8:diamond:T:diamond: in SB, BB folds, UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 raises to $30, HJ calls, I call, UTG+1 calls

Flop: A:diamond:7:club:9:heart: (pot: ~$120)

I check, UTG+1 checks, UTG+2 checks, HJ checks

Turn 6:spade: (pot: ~$120)

I bet $75

UTG+1 goes all-in for $120

UTG+2 goes all-in for $145

HJ folds

I call

At this point I turn over my hand and show the nut straight.  Both all-in villains look at my hand and a couple of people not in the hand say things like 'he's got the straight/nuts'.

River A:heart:

UTG+1 (a really old dude, had to be 80+ and just did everything sloooowly) looks at his hand, looks at the board, back to his hand, looks at my cards, looks at the board, and after ~30 seconds tables 77 for a full house.  Well, that's an annoying slow roll, but whatever.

This whole time UTG+2 (a younger guy who had been taking forever in all of his hands over the most trivial decisions) is also looking at his hand and the board.  Dealer says 'show or fold' and he still sits there for probably 20 seconds after the old dude tables his full house.  Finally he tables AA for rivered quads!  And there I am sitting on the other side of the table having just gotten slow rolled in the same hand by two different people.  Huzzah.  Younger dude apologized to me later in the next hand claiming he was just stunned that he had quad aces.  I told him not to worry about it - I had a funny story to tell now.

Absolutely killed it playing live in September.  74 hours over 7 sessions and made just a hair under 2000bbs at 1/3.  I know 27bb/hour is a huge heater and I'm totally alright with that - just happy to be riding the wave.

Something that's taken me a while to realize in live compared to online is relative hand strength versus the typical live player (loose/passive/weak).  For example, in online when you hit TPTK+NFD you're looking for ways to get your stack in the middle.  Live, against a lot of villains, when your stack does go in you're not nearly as far ahead as you might imagine.  I saw this exact scenario twice on Saturday.  Both times it was a young kid with a pair and a NFD get it in on the flop and both times it was a weak/passive old villain that tabled a set.  So, I've been working on reducing those types of plays when I know I can slow down, hit my flush, AND still get my stack in because these guys aren't folding their monsters.  I think this is helping me reduce the potential for crazy down swings, but I don't have the math to back me up - mostly just a gut feeling.

Another thing that's really helped was getting involved with a Skype group full of live low limit players.  DC forums are great and all, but the live forum is a little dead.  Talking live poker with other people has been really helpful.  Plus, two of the guys are in my area's player pool.

Resurrecting the blog!

I took some time off from playing poker because I wasn't feeling it.  I don't rely on this side money for anything so playing cards is purely recreational.  That means if I don't feel like playing, I just take a break.  No pressure, no fuss.

But now I'm back in the poker mentality.  Played the past three weekends, put in probably 50 hours and ran about 15bb/hour at 1/3.  I don't remember any particularly interesting hands although I know there were a few, but I've already thought them through and don't have much else to say.

Last Saturday I did meet ThierryHenry IRL though, which was cool.  Definitely a smart dude with a solid game - one of a few people in the Pittsburgh area who go to the other nearby casino that I don't frequent.  I'll have to travel further and meet him at his home room some time soon.  Brag time - we only played two pots and both times I had the nuts.  Bluffing into my full houses and nut straights is a bad idea.  I was on his immediate left, though.  Next time we'll have to switch places - I wonder if that will screw up my game?

I said something I'm not proud of at my most recent casino trip.  I consider my table image and mental approach to the game to be very good so I don't often get out of line.  Even these instances are minor to most people, but I noticed they were out of the norm for me.  First - I got called down 3 streets by an obviously new player who rivered the stone cold nuts.  He smooth called my river bet and I sarcastically said 'wow, thanks for not raising me there'.  It was obvious he didn't understand what I meant but also obvious that I was somehow embarrassing him.  Super uncool of me and I immediately regretted it.  The second one was me being short with a dealer.  Nice guy, we chat when he sits down at the table.  He reminded me to post my blind (I didn't forget, just wasn't prompt) and I think I said something like 'yea, I know, just wanted to keep them for a few more seconds'.  Sounded like a joke but I was in a bad mood and knew I was being sarcastic.

Again, small things in the grand scheme of things but opportunities for me to realize I'm not on my A game and it's coming out verbally to other people.  A good time to recenter myself or call it a day.

Yesterday was a huge winning day.  Today, not so much.  I didn't get 8 hours of sleep last night, but when I woke up this morning I just felt kinda bad but couldn't fall back asleep.  So, I showered, made some food, and read for a while.  I still wasn't feeling great, but decided to power through and head to the tables.  Listened to a Deuces Plays episode on the drive (an hour drive is a perfect amount of time for a podcast!) which got me pretty fired up.

The table I got seated at was awful.  Four old regulars, all extremely nitty.  These are the guys that only peddle the nuts, never raise even 2nd nuts, but somehow still get paid off.  The other people were semi-regs or random weak/tight recreational players, but none of them had more then 60bb ($1/$3 game /w $500 capped buy-in).

I ran like god yesterday and today evened out that variance.  Played from 4:00PM-7:00PM and won a single 50bb pot.  Not awful, but I lost several other pots in value owning situations.  Things like AK on an A55T2 board where I bet three streets and villain tables AT.  Which is totally fine!  If I'm not value owning myself then I'm missing out on a ton of value overall.  Just when it happens five times in a row it cuts into my stack pretty badly.

Another issue I have is that I play much, much worse when stuck.  I've been trying to play shorter sessions when I get stuck and longer when I'm winning.  I also only bring $500 with me, and I rarely bust it.  But when I do, I go straight to my F game so I just don't bring extra buyins.

So I get down to $200 and realize it's going to be really tough to dig myself back out against a table of nits and short stackers.  And for once, I actually quit after identifying myself in a bad game with a bad image and bad mental attitude.  I didn't feel like making the hour drive back, yet, so I jumped into a $50 nightly tourney and continued to run just as bad.  Didn't manage to win a hand, sucked out on twice, chopped AK vs AQ all-in on an 866 board, then shoved JTs on the button against BB's ATo.  It was fun to donk around in a tourney, but I always forget how awful the structure is.  8,000 starting stack, 18 minute levels, levels go: 25/50, 50/100, 50/100/25, 100/200/25, 200/400/50, 300/600/100. 

I didn't bink the donkament, but salvaged a losing night by identifying the situation and quitting, thus minimizing the time I was in a bad spot and getting ready for the next game where I'll be in a better one!

In my last post I talked briefly about outplaying the bad regs and paying attention to them when I'm not in the hand.  Last night, I put that into overdrive.  The game I play at is $1/$3 with a $500 buy-in cap.  It's at a little casino that draws a decent weekend crowd because of the race track.  It's outside the area's major city, which has it's own casino that is ~30 mins from this one, so the room is usually full of local regulars, older guys, and tourists from the opposite direction of the city.  I cashed out $2975 (not including my $500 buyin).  To be fair, $1250 of that was from hitting a bonus promotion, but I was still sitting nearly 800bb deep at the table.

Anyway, everything clicked last night and I had the best single session of my life.  I was running good, of course; no major suckouts after the money went in.  I was probably hitting more of my draws than on average, but the advantage of having a major winning image is being able to push people around with much more semi-bluff equity.  Other simple stuff came together in my head really well.  For example, A7s on a 345ss board.  I'm preflop aggressor, I bet flop, one caller.  Turn is 7x, villain checks.  Perfect spot to check back; value betting is too thin and I don't want to raise/fold my nut draw against someone that may have turned a straight or be on a poorly played set.

I was going to post a few interesting hands, but in posting them I realized I am not sure of the best lines so I threw them up in the forums.

Headed back to the casino tonight, hoping to round out a $4k+ weekend.

My focus of attention tonight: Identifying good 2 barrel boards against villains whose ranges can't call against pressure.

After a week off from a bad night of coolers, I'm back at the tables and killing it.  When I started playing live after Black Friday, my plan was to avoid the regulars and just target the 1-2 fish I could easily identify.  Now, I'm realizing that the regulars at my games are just as bad and a great source of money!  Even guys who clearly spend 40+ hours a week playing have fundamental errors in their poker thinking, make terrible decisions, and regularly fail to seize opportunities to maximize EV.  I lost count last night the number of times I saw a reg check a set when a backdoor flush came in, or check their made flush when the river pairs the board.

No interesting hands to post today; yesterday's session was straight forward "make hands, value bet, stack chips".

Focused attention for tonight's session: observing hands I'm not involved in and finding exploitable tendencies from those hands.

This was at about 1:30AM last night, 7 handed $1/$3 game, everyone at the table looked visibly tired and people were playing very passive preflop.  These three hands happened literally back-to-back-to-back.  I started the first hand with just about 300bb.

UTG fold, UTG+1 folds, MP calls, LP calls, BTN calls, I raised $15 /w AT in SB, BB folds, UTG fold, MP calls $15, LP fold, BTN fold, SB fold

Flop: 442 (pot $35)

I bet $18, LP calls $18

Turn: A (pot $69)

I bet $22, LP calls $22

River: A (pot $143)

I bet $50, LP raised to $150, I call $100

LP tables 44 for quads, final pot $443

Very next hand:

UTG calls, UTG+1 folds, MP calls, LP calls, I raised $15 OTB with AK, SB folds, BB folds, UTG calls $15, MP calls $15, LP folds

Flop: KK9 (pot $43)

UTG checks, MP checks, I bet $31, UTG folds, MP calls $31

Turn: 2 (pot $104)

MP checks, I bet $60, MP calls $60

River: 3 (pot: $224)

MP checks, I bet $120, MP calls $120

MP tables TJ for a flush; final pot $464

Very next hand (I have ~$450 at this point)

UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, MP raises $15, I raise $45 in LP with AA, BTN fold, SB fold, BB fold, UTG+1 fold, MP calls $30

Flop: K72 (pot $91)

MP checks, I bet $65, MP calls

Turn: 7 (pot $221)

MP checks, I bet $125, MP calls $125

River: 7 (pot $471)

MP checks, I go all-in for $215, Villain calls $215

Villain tables KK, final pot $901

The first hand was a little confusing.  I cbet the flop because I think I'm ahead of villain's preflop ck/call range and could even called called once by overs or a weaker ace and there are a lot of good cards to 2-barrel if he has a PP.  When I hit my ace, it's a clear value bet.  When another ace comes, I bet and I thought villain said 'call', but he must have said raise.  Normally I might consider re-raising, but my hearing him wrong really threw me off and I just auto-called.

Second hand, I thought I was just going for three easy streets of value with top trips, didn't expect villain to call me down with an inside straight and backdoor hearts.  Hooray value-owning!

Third hand was brutal.  In my mind, it was value bets all day.  Villain easily has AK here, maybe even KQ or KJ.  By the river, he's never folding Kx so I expected, again, to get paid.  Just brutally value owned myself three straight hands.

This was a ridiculous hand from last Sunday.  Pretty sure I found the tightest low stakes NL player in the world.  I had been card dead for about two hours, only playing two, maybe three hands in that time when this happens.  This is at a $1/$3 table with a $500 buyin.  Villain and I are both around 250bb.

4 limpers, SB calls, BB (HERO) checks 77

Flop: 662 (pot $16)

SB checks, Hero bets $10, fold, fold, fold, fold, SB calls

Turn: 7 (pot $34)

SB checks, Hero bets $35, SB calls

River: J (pot: $113)

SB checks, Hero bets $100, SB thinks - says "nah, you're too tight" and folds.

SB open folds A6!  I talked about this hand with another DC member who thinks it was a good fold.  Which may be true if you're multi-tabling online and can actually get aware from flopped trips with an ace kicker.  But live!  No one is folding trips, ever.  Anyone else at in the entire room would have been shoveling chips into the pot; the whole time I was waiting for the check-raise, getting ready for a 500bb pot.  But no; check/fold a blank river.

I got soul read.

I'm trying to decide if the two hour round trip to play cards during the week is worth it.  Basically two hours for four hours of play.  I'm not sure, then hands like this happens.

UTG folds, UTG+1 raises $12, fold, fold, MP+1 calls, fold, fold I call OTB /w KJ, SB fold, BB calls; pot is $44

Flop comes J72

BB checks, UTG+1 bets $20, MP folds, I call $20, BB folds

Turn 3 (pot: $83)

UTG+1 bets $35, I call $35

River A (pot: $153)

UTG+1 checks, I bet $65, UTG+1 calls $65, shows QJ

A few months ago I would have checked that river back in a heartbeat and missed out on a nice sized value bet.  Villain and I were ~200BB deep here.  I'd seen him barrel top pair a few times and had noted he didn't value bet the river light and always got passive when overcards came.  I put him squarely on JT/JQ/JK or busted diamonds.  I might be value owning myself against QQ/KK here every now and then but that's unlikely.  Nice bet/fold spot for value.  I almost wonder if I could have went a bit bigger, maybe $80.